Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/294

 curling her green, soft draperies among the long grass. “Come and sit down and tell me”

He threw himself on the grass.

“Sure it won’t bore you?” he asked.

She took his hand and held it. He let her take it; but his hand did not hold hers.

“I seem to remember,” he said, “the last time I saw you—you were going away, or something. You told me I ought to do something great; and I told you—or, anyway, I thought to myself—that there was plenty of time for that. I’d always had a sort of feeling that I could do something great whenever I chose to try. Well—yes, you did go away, of course; I remember perfectly—and I missed you extremely. And some one told me I looked ill; and I went to my doctor, and he sent me to a big swell, and he said I’d only got about a year to live. So then I began to think.”

Her fingers tightened on the unresponsive hand.

“And I thought: Here I’ve been thirty years in this world. I’ve the experience of twenty-eight and a half—I suppose the first little bit doesn’t count. If I’d had time, I meant to write another book, just to show exactly what a man feels when he knows